The passage of time is sometimes measured in minutes, hours, days, and years. However, to me, all time is, is a set of memories and moments. Some moments will make important memories, others will be nothing but a bleak and empty place in one's soul. At some points, however, when something is lost, what a person may previously have perceived as meaningless, can turn into one of the most important memories of life.

I've always wondered what people see when they look at the people around them. Occasionally strangers meet eyes somewhere, a single glance, a momentary exchange of emotions; of lives, and they each form their own opinion about the other person, whether they realize it or not. At that moment, every piece of one's life experience factors in to create a single thought. That thought will become a memory, and although in a miniscule fashion, that memory will influence the next time you form an opinion.

"I'm not long for this world", he spoke softly, more so than his usual calm tone- as if that would make it better. I stared at the floor, and for a moment, time just stopped. A silence that could have been cut with a knife overtook the room- it stole my breath and every bit of warmth from my body. Across the room, I heard my aunt whimper, then cry. What could have been any ordinary nothing memory to me, turned at that moment to what I can only describe as a bomb being dropped on my life. I knew at that moment that the way I saw the world and lived my life would be changed forever. I knew that soon it would change even more.

I think the thing that made me the most angry about that situation was that grandpa knew he was going to die. Furthering my anger was that I could blame it on another person, hold another human being responsible for his sickness, and ultimately his death- but that I couldn't scream at them, or hurt them, or even kill them. It was a whole company, and the ones responsible for that moment, and so many others in my life, as well as in the lives of what I could only imagine thousands of other people, were already dead. He refused to place blame. To this day, I don't know how to feel about that.

Two months after that day, I came home to an existence forever broken. I couldn't find my mom, and my dad was completely drunk. It was the first time I'd seen my dad cry. It was one of those times I knew exactly what was happening, but forced myself not to know. I offered to get him a soda. I tried not to look at the devastation that had invaded my home, my sanctuary. There was a broken dish on the floor, alchohol everywhere. He didn't seem to notice me. There was nothing behind his eyes, no emotion or life at all. An hour later, he told my brother and I that a part of us was dead, and that the our lives would never be the same. He didn't say that, but what we heard that day was tantamount to just that- the end of the world as we knew it.

The day he died, the weather was beautiful. More so than it had been in so long. The sun was out and it was warm with only a slight breeze. I remember the day he told us he would soon leave us was a sunny day, too. I imagine that the sun and the calm outside the day he died was the angels welcoming home, and the heavens opening their arms to him. The beauty shown on the earth for us to see that day pales in comparison to the amazing things I know he sees every day now. Every sunny day, like the day in June, is a memoir to him, and a reminder that no matter who leaves me, I will never walk alone.

Love is a strange and confusing emotion, if it could be described as that at all. It can take so many forms- A friend, a family member, romance. There's little difference in the feeling itself, but at the same time, they're so different that they can barely fit into the same catagory. Love is bittersweet, though. It has no storybook ending. Nothing ever ends happily ever after. While it lasts, though, it's a drug just like any other. You enjoy it, you will kill for it, you need it, and when it runs out, you're left a terrible mess of a person.


-2-
Before my grandpa died, people were at least civil to each other at family gatherings. After he was gone, slowly but surely, the sanity slipped. Comments that never would have been made in his presence. Did they realize that they are still in his presence? I did. It made me want to scream. In a room like this, though, no one would hear me. It was every comment ever made at the table in the house with the pink wallpaper and the white carpet that changed me forever. A demon spawned at that table. A cold cruel demon that shared it's energy among everyone there. I don't know quite what created it. Part of me hopes I never will.

In the house with the pink wallpaper, if I should ever go in the room with the piano, I can almost see him. Just almost. His frail fingers on the keys in his blue shirt and if I'm really lucky, I can hear him play. I watch his fingers move over the keys and as they press down. Amazing, somber and strong melodies follow. The kind that stops your heart from beating and changes the way you look at the world, if only for a moment. His eyes forward, occasionally looking down... His figure and gifted hands are but a slow-moving image now, and the music he played is but a whisper.. They exist now only in my memories and my dreams. They will live there forever, as will his soul and every bit of love he ever gave me.



I think it's all just a matter of opinion. Who gets to judge us here and what gave them the right? Our own government is holding us hostage. I am a hostage, you are a hostage. It will all fall some day but when? You won't see it coming. The paranoid will become the survivors. You'll never forget today, as long as you live, however long that shall be...

Did you really think you'd get away with it? The lies, the years of lies. You are nobody. Remember that while you suffocate and die. I don't mean to be morbid. Just honest. I really do love you. If you don't see that, something is wrong with you. You are the problem here. You are the only one who doesn't see what's happening around you. You are killing everybody. Fix it while you still can. You know how.

I know you can hear me. I know you can feel the emptiness inside you. I know you can feel the void. End it. I dare you. You're not strong enough to, are you? I know you can hear them. The voices. They cry out to you but you block them out. Take your pills. How long can you stand it? You feel them. You know they're there. They see you. You could see them if you just stop blocking it out. They need your help... They need your help.